Supporting your child at home

Provide emotional support to your child.

Celebrate and support their strengths and abilities.

Encourage your child to read out loud every day for 10-20 minutes. Use text that is appropriate for their reading level. If a child is in an intervention program, appropriate reading material may be provided.

Read to your child every day or encourage them to listen to age-appropriate or grade-level audio-books. This will ensure vocabulary and comprehension development, and keep them interested and excited about books. These books may be at a significantly higher level than their current reading ability. Check your local library for audiobooks or purchase them at sites such as audible.com.

If your child has a diagnosed reading (print) disability, apply for free access to downloadable audio and e-text books through the Centre for Equitable Library Access. In Ontario, sign up online with a library card at signup.celalibrary.ca or contact your public library for assistance. In Quebec, you must apply through the Service québécois du livre adapté (SQLA) using this form (specify on the form that you want CELA service). With a CELA account, you can also apply for free access to Bookshare, an American online library of over 200,000 titles, including New York Times bestsellers, novels, children’s books, mysteries, science fiction, nonfiction, foreign-language books. These books are read using text to speech software (ie. computer voice).

Encourage their participation in sports, music, arts or other activities that the student enjoys.

Talk to your child about learning disabilities at a developmentally appropriate level.